Hello, and welcome to my blog! Here I will be posting advice on how to improve your grammar, writing, and reading skills. Although I’m a grammar geek and find words fascinating, I understand that not everyone is as nerdy as me. So, I will do my best to make each post entertaining, funny, and educational.
And because we don’t all learn the same way, I also upload each lesson to YouTube. Feel free to choose which method works best for you:
Click here to watch the video.
Or keep reading for today’s lesson.
A little about me: My name is Angela, and I’m an editor, publisher, author, poet, musician, librarian, and the proud mama of a basset hound named Cassie. I recently launched my own freelance editing business, Fine Tuned Editing, in hopes of supporting fellow writers along their journey to publication while they support me along my journey to retirement. I’m twenty-five years old, and a Scorpio, in case you were wondering. When I’m not busy working or creating, you can usually find me walking the beaches of Cape Cod, binge-watching episodes of Friends, or kicking my boyfriend’s ass at Scrabble. (Sorry, honey. You know it’s true.)
But enough about me. Let’s get back to the reason we’re all here – words! Beautiful, sensational, illogical words. Just when you think you’ve figured them out, or mastered the rule of ‘i before e except after c,’ a word like caffeine comes along, and suddenly you’re reaching for that fifth cup of coffee. While I won’t attempt to make sense of it all, I will try to unpack some of the most common grammatical nuisances in the English language, and arm you with a few simple tools to fend them off the next time they come buzzing into your frontal lobe.
So, are you ready to begin?
Then sit back, relax, and prepare yourself for Grammar Wars.
(cue dramatic music)
Today we will be talking about the ongoing battle between me and I.
When do you use me? When do you use I? And what exactly is the difference?
We tend to come across this question when referring to a group of people all taking part in some action. For instance:
“Rachel, Ross and I met for coffee at Central Perk. Gunther was there, and he quickly brought two cappuccinos for Rachel and I.”
Or is it… Rachel and me?
Because there is more than one subject accompanying the action, it can be easy to allow our brains to confuse me with I. But they are not interchangeable.
You would never say “Gunther brought I a cappuccino.”
You would say “Gunther brought me a cappuccino.”
This is because I is a subjective pronoun. It performs the action. Me, on the other hand, is an objective pronoun. It receives the action. Because Gunther is bringing me the cappuccino, Gunther is the subjective pronoun, performing the action, and me is the objective pronoun, receiving it.
And yet, when Rachel enters the picture, we often find ourselves leaning toward the inaccurate choice, “Rachel and I.”
Why is that?
The answer is quite simple. We all want to sound smart. “Me” is such a colloquial term, but “I” has a certain air of sophistication. So, in an effort to make ourselves look good, we wind up choosing the wrong pronoun and making ourselves look foolish instead.
So how do we stop the madness and let our writing convey the brilliant, sophisticated people we truly are?
The trick is to cover up the additional subjects in the sentence, and read it as if the speaker is the sole participant in the action. In other words, pretend Rachel doesn’t exist.
We did this in the example above, when we took out Rachel and made ourselves the lone recipient of the cappuccinos. As soon as we did that, the answer was clear as day. Gunther doesn’t bring I cappuccinos, he brings me cappuccinos. When we add Rachel back in, the sentence becomes:
“Gunther was there, and he quickly brought two cappuccinos for Rachel and me.”
See? That wasn’t so hard.
Let’s try another example. And remember, if you’re struggling, just remove the other subjects and read the sentence as if the speaker is the only one participating in the action.
Here we go.
Example Two:
“Molly and I went to the store to buy some candy.”
Is this correct? Or is it:
“Molly and me went to the store to buy some candy.”
The Answer is: option one, Molly and I. We would never say “Me went to the store to buy some candy,” so the correct answer must be “I.”
Let’s try a slightly more challenging example:
“The final exam was very difficult, even for bright students like Brad and I.”
Or is it:
“The final exam was very difficult, even for bright students like Brad and me.”
The correct answer is: Me. You wouldn’t say “the final exam was very difficult for I,” so the answer must be “me.”
(Some of you might be thinking, shouldn’t it be myself? Although it sounds fancier, myself is not correct. Myself should only be used in rare instances, and never in a sentence that contains multiple subjects. If you’re ever wondering whether or not to use myself, the safe bet is to avoid it.)
One final example:
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, so let’s just keep it between you and I.”
Or is it:
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, so let’s just keep it between you and me.”
The correct answer is: Me.
This one’s a real curveball, because taking the second subject out of the sentence actually alters the sentence into something that doesn’t make any sense. Instead, you have to get creative. And this is where subjective and objective pronouns come back into play.
We know that subjective pronouns perform the action and objective pronouns receive the action.
In other words, subjective pronouns are: I, she, he, and we.
As in:
I threw the ball.
He threw the ball.
She threw the ball.
We threw the ball.
While Objective pronouns are: Me, him, her, and us.
As in:
The ball was thrown to me.
The ball was thrown to him.
The ball was thrown to her.
The ball was thrown to us.
Let’s try plugging in a different pronoun in our example sentence. Would you ever say “let’s just keep it between we?” Or would you say, “let’s just keep it between us?”
Correct, you would say “us.” You would use the objective pronoun.
Which means, in this case, we need to use the singular objective pronoun: Me.
And the sentence becomes: “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, so let’s just keep it between you and me.”
In summary, when you can’t eliminate the second subject without changing the meaning of the sentence, try replacing it with a pronoun that belongs in the same category. If you can pit we and us against each other and determine which sounds right, then you can apply the same principle to I and me.
That’s it! Not too hard, right?
I hope you found this lesson valuable, and if you did, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below. Also, feel free to share the grammar questions that you struggle with, and I just might feature them on a future Tip of the Month.
